Thursday, June 1, 2017

Democrats begin long climb to relevance -- June 1, 2017 column

After seven months of post-election hibernation, the old
bears in the Democratic Party are stirring.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday formed
American Possibilities, a political action committee that could be his launching
pad for a presidential bid.

Biden, who chose not to run last time, is probably
right that he would have been a better candidate than Hillary Clinton, but time
marches on. He’ll turn 78 in November 2020.

Clinton has reappeared after long walks in the woods near
Chappaqua to blame her defeat on former FBI Director Jim Comey, the Russians,
the Democratic National Committee, the news media and even the perception that
she couldn’t lose.

“I was a victim of a very broad assumption that I was
going to win,” she said Wednesday at a tech conference in California.

Whatever you think of her, Clinton insists she’s not
running for office again. She does want a role in Democratic politics.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

Her new political group – Onward Together – aims to
organize against President Donald Trump’s policies and help people enter
politics. Its slogan: “Resist, insist, persist and enlist.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi raises hope that
Democrats can regain control of the House next year with a renewed emphasis on
creating jobs. She also wisely discourages loose, exuberant talk about
impeaching Trump.

“If you are talking about impeachment, you are talking
about, `What are the facts?’ Not that `I don’t like him’ and `I don’t like his
hair’ and – what are the facts?” Pelosi said May 15 on CNN.

Pelosi wants the Speaker’s gavel back. But she is 77,
and her lieutenants, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, are 77 and 76.

Age matters in all these cases because Democrats need
to let go of the past while they cultivate a new generation of leaders. Democrats know
what they don’t like – all things Trump – but they still struggle with what
President George H.W. Bush derided long ago as “the vision thing.”

In a sign they have no intention of fading into life
in Chicago, the Obamas just plunked down $8.1 million for the house they’ve been
renting in Washington.

The former president, 55, likely has decades ahead to motivate
young people to get involved and run for office.

Meanwhile, one member of the younger Democratic set, Chelsea
Clinton, is on the talk circuit promoting her new children’s book, “She Persisted:
13 American Women who Changed the World.”

“I don’t have any plans to” run for office, says the
former first daughter. That’s a maybe.

At 37, she has nearly 1.7
million Twitter followers, but Clinton’s chief qualifications – and her chief
liabilities -- are her name and extraordinary ability to rake in cash as a
speaker.

She was inspired to write the book after the Senate silenced
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during the debate over the nomination of Jeff
Sessions to be attorney general.

When Warren attempted to read a letter by Coretta
Scott King opposing Sessions for a federal judgeship decades ago, she basically
was told to sit down and shut up.

“She was warned. She was given an explanation.
Nevertheless, she persisted,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said,
turning “She Persisted” into a rallying cry for Democrats.

Warren, nearly 68, is up for re-election next year and
hasn’t said if she’ll run for president in 2020. Republicans reportedly plan to
attack her hard during the Senate campaign in hopes of spoiling her
presidential chances.

“Sometimes being a girl isn’t easy. At some point,
someone probably will tell you no, will tell you to be quiet and may even tell
you your dreams are impossible,” Clinton writes. “Don’t listen to them. These
13 American women certainly did not take no for an answer. They persisted.”

Large protests against Trump’s policies enliven Democrats,
but it will take more than marches to win elections.

Trump’s voters aren’t yet having the buyers’ remorse
critics expect. Hillary Clinton would again lose – even the popular vote -- if
the election were rerun, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported April 23.

For their long climb back to relevancy, Democrats will
need fresh faces, an agenda that connects with ordinary Americans -- and
persistence.